Transcript of the above video: 

So sort of program note to open this video real quick. The 7:45pm slot is going to be where I start to put more topical, news and comment but more or less commentary, the videos that I make, I'm going to start putting them into the 7:45pm time slot, when I make them. It's not necessarily going to be daily, it's just if I see something that pops up. The standard 7:45am 3:45pm and 11:45pm videos that go up every day, those are going to continue in their usual vein. As you may be aware, the mic that I've been using to do these sort of topical videos isn't the greatest, so we're getting that replaced; we're working on that. Thanks to everybody for their comments regarding the mic. People have sort of said "oh hey I know you probably hear this a thousand times but here's a solution to it." I actually really appreciate it; a lot of people have been very nice in saying "hey I don't want to bother you about this but this is kind of the situation", know it's much appreciated, but I'm doing this video, it's a topical video and in the future you'll probably see some of the more casual videos that I do regarding these topical issues but for regular viewers of this channel the 7:45pm time slot is generally going to be where you're going to see these kind of videos. 

So hopefully and I haven't made the thumbnail yet, but I'm hoping to be able to make a thumbnail where I basically reference because when I first thought of making this video, I was reading an article from the Bangkok Post which I'll get to in a moment but I immediately thought of a movie I saw recently, The Beekeeper with Jason Statham, where he basically says "do you know what's going on here where they are scamming the weakest in our society?" And I immediately thought of this when I read this video because all I could think of was "wow you are literally targeting the lowest,"  I hate to use the term "weakest" but it's the lower socioeconomic strata here in Thailand, literally the working poor are being targeted here and it seems to be by the Government, okay. Let me get into it. 

So I thought of making this video after reading a recent article from the Bangkok Post, that is bangkokpost.com, the article is titled: Only 'poor Thais' can be street vendors, says City Hall. I guess my retort to that would be, "who says City Hall?" And then people, "well you can't fight City Hall!" Whatever well you also can't stop the impetus of someone who wants to earn their livelihood. I have got to be honest with you, I found this whole thing appalling. There were a couple of parts of it I didn't have any problem with but overall, thematically it's just, I just found it appalling and galling, it was terrible. In any event, quoting directly: "New City Hall rules say that only "poor Thais" will be allowed to be street vendors in Bangkok..." Well first of all, you know as a naturalized Thai there were a lot of reasons I became Thai but one of the big ones was one thing that I always felt was an inherent Thai liberty was the ability to be able to make your own living, to engage in your own livelihood. I thought that was one of the basic sort of the basic elements of being a Thai and now City Hall is just going to dictate who can make their living! Quoting further: ".. and they will be barred from employing migrants, among other requirements." I will get into the other requirement, but regarding the migrant issue, yeah I'm okay with that, that's always been a restriction. Only Thai Nationals can be Street vendors legally here in Thailand. I've never had a problem with that, that's as it should be. Quoting further: "Bangkok Governor Chadchart Sittipunt.." and to be clear, I have actually thought that he's been a pretty balanced and pretty good City administrator in my opinion up to this point but I don't know what's going on with this. "..has signed a notice outlining the new rules and it will take effect when the Royal Gazette publishes it, said Aekvarunyoo Amrapala, (excuse my mispronunciation there) a spokesman for the Bangkok Metropolitan Administration."

Well this has yet to into effect. I hope there's the possibility that cooler heads could prevail before this gets sort of published and they try to enforce this because again I find this appalling, this is just terrible. Quoting further: "..under the new regulations, Street vendors must have Thai nationality," Now to be clear, I don't mind that. I think that is warranted; I think that is appropriate. Quoting further: "..hold Government welfare cards," so now you are dictating to people what documents they need to be and I find this interesting, remember the Government Welfare Card program was the sort of default or plan B to the Digital Wallet Program so this WEF idea of constant surveillance of the economy, constant surveillance of the financial system was sort of moved into the Welfare Card Program because that was utilized during COVID to give out relief to people in need, genuinely in need, but now it looks like it's being used to further these WEF initiatives of ‘owning nothing and being happy’ and what was it that the Marxist said? "We will crush them between the millstone of inflation and taxes" and I will get into here that's what we're going to see. But this Welfare Card Program, again I find it interesting that this would have been the Digital Wallet I expect had that gone through more smoothly or whatever you want to call it. But now they are making this a sign-up to this Welfare System which is acting in the stead of the Digital Wallet System, a requirement for any Thai that just wants to earn their living on the streets here in Bangkok. And for those who are unaware, have never been to Thailand, we have a vibrant informal Street economy. It is what makes Bangkok amazing quite honestly. I don't know why but for years there's been a segment here in Bangkok the ones to eradicate that or control it or try to “reign in” the informal economy or the “gray economy”, basically they want to tax everybody all the time and extract wealth quite honestly from the lowest strata, the working poor, that's who we are talking about here. These are not fat cats or something like this. These are people that move around a street cart and sell fruit; this is who we're talking about. That said, quoting further: "..hold government welfare cards, be paying installments for houses built by the National Housing Authority..." why is that a requirement? For somebody that just wants to make their living, "...and receive welfare allowances from the Ministry of Social Development and Human Security." So UBI, is this sort of a back door way of pushing all these people onto Universal Basic Income which as we've discussed, that's another sort of Communistic initiative; it absolutely saps the entrepreneurial spirit out of an economy; it's Communistic; I mean it's just Communistic is what it is.

Quoting further: "In addition, they must be included in the annual taxation system of the Revenue Department." I mean that just pretty much sums it up. And as the title of this video suggests, "We're from the Government, we're here to help." That's a quote from Ronald Reagan, it's a great quote. Where he said the worst words in the English language which I'd love to translate this into Thai, the worst words in the English language are "We're from the Government and we are here to help." I mean that was so on the nose. The two things I immediately thought of was that quote from Reagan and the quote from the film The Beekeeper. I'll put a link in the description below to a preview for The Beekeeper so you kind of have some context for that quote but I mean again the Government has had all of this time to try to come up, and by the way, they don't have other things to do, they can't figure out how to alleviate traffic here in the capital? "No, no, our priority is to come after the working poor! That's what we are going to do in the City Government." Quoting further: "Their income must not exceed 300,000 Baht a year after deducting business related costs on their tax returns." 

Now one thing people probably aren't aware of is look these folks in the informal economy they're not running around filing a bunch of tax returns and doing all this stuff. They're just selling their wares and they are living very hand to mouth, okay. This is so wrong on so many levels I don't even have the words to really quite articulate it correctly so I'm sorry to these poor vendors that I'm not able to articulate this well enough, but I pray Thailand, please come to your senses on this. This is a terrible idea. Quoting further: "Each vendor is allowed to have a sales assistant who must also be Thai." Why? Why are you coming in with all of this nanny state nitpickety, these are people that just - get out of the way, get out of the way Government! The Thais know how to make their money. Get out of the way. Quoting further: "Vendors must also receive permission from the relevant Public Health Authorities." Public Health Authorities! When was the last time we all had to seek permission from public? Oh that was COVID wasn't it, where we all had to seek permission and they tried to impose a vaccine passport on us where they required us to take an experimental gene therapy in order to interact with society at large. Oh that's a great idea. Ask permission from Public Health Authorities. Meanwhile, anybody that has ever been in Thailand eating street food, walked around interacted with anybody on the street knows this is not a major priority. This is kind of one of those whoa, what would we do without these people kind of questions, sort of thing. 

Quoting further: "Vendors must ensure pedestrians have a space 1.5 to 2 metres wide to walk in depending on street widths." Now that one I am, that is a little bit nanny nitpickety but there is an issue with Street vendors and use of thoroughfare. Now I do get that but again this is one of those where the Government, there is a legitimate problem and it's like using a mallet to hit a fly, sort of thing. It's like yeah okay if you want to go around have the Tessakij, (the Bangkok Metropolitan Administration) be a little more scrutinizing and enforce the issues with the thoroughfares, I don't think anybody has a problem with that. But was there any big hue and cry to basically tie down the street vendors of Bangkok with a bunch of useless bureaucracy paperwork and now wealth extraction on the lowest economic strata through what I can only define as an almost neo-Marxist kind of taxation, tracking totalitarian system. Quoting further: "The area of each stall is limited to three square metres.” Again, this micromanagement. “Stalls must occupy only the side of the pavement adjacent to a road surface but must be at least 50cm from the road for safety." Okay, I mean those are little kind of public safety things. Again a little bit nitpickety, a little bit nanny-minderish but yeah there needs to be some regulation for again issues pertaining the thoroughfare and the use of roads, I get that. Quoting further: "There must also be a space of at least 3 metres long at an interval of every 10 stalls to function as an emergency exit." Again that is kind of fire safety stuff, it doesn't bother me so much. But man this notion of they're going to bring people into this Welfare Card scheme which is effectively acting in lieu of the Digital Wallet scheme which is basically social credit scoring. I'm going to put a meme up; I love this meme with this cat talking about we're talking about the Digital Wallet and talking about the Digital Wallet Tokens. If your money can be tracked and traced and they can turn it off and on, it's not money, it's a social credits program. Well that's what we are looking at here, only it is framed differently they're saying how much you can make; they're telling these little vendors, these are not people that are running extravagant businesses, these are little working poor vendors that they have to put themselves in this neo-Marxist scheme in order to just ply their trade and make their livelihood, and quite honestly I find it appalling.